It’s amazing how much noise they can make….toes did eventually turn pink with cold….

We had a storm.  A storm of rumbling thunder, the crash of lightning and then the thrashing of rain that came down in sheets.  Very quickly the garden began to flood and we watched with wonder and awe as the storm threw down hailstones with the rain and they bounced off the grass and splashed into the growing puddles of flood water on the patio.

We ventured out a little to feel the wet on our faces and on our toes, then running back into the house to shelter and watch from the windows and doors.

It all happened very quickly, in less than an hour there was a significant amount of water – we watched the street become a river and I was glad that the flow was moving away from us – then as quickly as it came, the storm ended.

We went out into the garden to put our feet in icy puddles and to watch the rainbow appear overhead.  The pile of hailstones we had watch grow on the trampoline tempted us to explore.  My climbing onto the trampoline was purely with the desire to capture a photograph or two – some of the hailstones were pretty large and to be fair a rare sight in the desert.  For a child however, what an amazing thing to bounce in!

Scattered in number and size – Mother Nature at work.

But of course, once you’re on a trampoline the wobble of the fabric beneath your feet brings out another desire and before you know it you are bouncing too, because, just when was the last time you bounced in hailstones?

So the 15th October has been marked in the diary.

Over the next few hours and days we heard about other’s stories.  The amount of water that came down in such a short amount of time created rivers of not only water, but also mud.  Roads were blocked, houses were damaged and cars and trucks were stranded in the mudslides created by the storm.  The lack of vegetation from drought and fires over recent months meant there was nothing holding the soil in place and the photographs on individual’s news feeds on social media and from the press were sobering to review.  Then there was the news that someone had lost their life.  A vehicle had been pushed into a storm drain, flipped onto its side and became buried under six feet of mud.

It’s a little haunting now to think back to the storm and the innocent fun we were having in the aftermath of the rain.  My adult memory of this day is tempered with the grown up world view, of my wider knowledge of what occurred and the compassion I feel for those affected.  Hopefully my child will stay kid like in his memory and it will be of enormous hailstones, chilly toes and squeals of pleasure at the noise and bounce of the trampoline.